Talk:Stanley Fish

What about the vandalism?

What happen to this article which has been considered vandalism? I know that there is a lot of people who don't like Fish and his theories, but what can come of trying to deface a wiki artilce.

--chemica 07:57, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Look at the history. There was no vandalism. There were merely repeated attempts to correct a poorly written and misleading article.

By removing sourced material without ever actually phrasing a coherent objection. Which was vandalism prior to the objection being phrased. Now it's mere incompetence, which is not bannable, but still very much revertable. Phil Sandifer 23:44, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

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The section "Stanley Fish and Deconstruction" in the article (as well as the Murray article link provided) really doesn't seem to provide any substantial information about Fish's interpretation of deconstruction or about Murray's counterpoint. It just seems like two vague remarks delivered entirely out of context, especially the Fish quote, which is lacking a citation even in the provided Murray article. I'm going to delete the section of the article, as well as the link to the Murray article, provide a link to a streaming audio file in which Fish is interviewed about deconstruction, and put the Murray link in the Murray wikipedia entry where it might have a better context.

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Murray is best known for defending racism in the controversial book "The Bell Curve".

He did not actually defend racism in that book. In the book, Murray and Herrnstein argued that IQ exists; that it is heritable; and that some of the difference in mean IQ scores between the white European population of the United States and the African-American population (one full standard deviation of 15 points) is probably attributable to genetic factors. (FOR WHOM THE BELL CURVE TOLLS: A Prelude to an Upcoming Special Issue of Skeptic (Volume 3, #3)An Interview with the Author of The Bell Curve CHARLES MURRAY Interview by Frank Miele)If you had read the book (specifically the thirteenth chapter), you would know that nowhere in it does Murray defend racism.

This is the dictionary definition of racism.

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I'm with you anonymous person. That's why I'm deleting this sentence. Actually, there's lots else wrong with it, too. It's POV to say that Murray is "best known" for that particular book anyway -- he was a pretty important public intellectual before it.

--Christofurio 23:42, May 19, 2004 (UTC)

Isn't Stanley Fish the guy who published Sokal's fake article in Social Text? Or is that someone else entirely?

I think you're thinking of Aronowitz.

Copyright violation

As requested by Mwanner, I'll note that certain sentences are copied verbatim or only slightly modified from the FIU link cited in the copyvio notice:

FIU text	Wikipedia text
"Fish earned his Ph.D. ... from Yale University in 1962. He taught English at the University of California at Berkeley and Johns Hopkins University before becoming arts and sciences professor of English and professor of law at Duke University, where he taugh for 14 years in the 1980s and 90s."	"Fish earned his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1962. He taught English at the University of California at Berkeley and Johns Hopkins University before becoming Arts and Sciences Professor of English and professor of law at Duke University from 1986 to 1998."
"Considered a leading scholar on English poet John Milton—author of “Paradise Lost”—Fish’s reputation was cemented by his book “How Milton Works”, published in 2001."	"Considered a leading scholar of Milton, a reputation cemented by the book How Milton Works in 2001...."
"Fish is best known for his work on interpretive communities, which looks at how the interpretation of a text by a reader depends on the reader's acceptance of a common set of foundational assumptions or texts."	"...Fish is best known for his work on interpretive communities, ... that studies how the interpretation of a text by a reader depends on the reader's ... acceptance of a common set of foundational assumptions or texts."

There may be more. I stopped there. --Flex 13:07, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

It appears that FIU copied Wikipedia, not the other way around. The press release is dated June 29. The last major change to the page was June 11 and the text in fact goes back months further. I expect this sort of thing will become increasingly common as Wikipedia becomes more popular. AaronSw 15:33, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

In fact, that is exactly what happened. I emailed FIU's office of media relations and asked them about the similarities. They responded:

I am responding your email to the Office of Media Relations regarding a possible copyright infringement of Wikipedia's entry for Florida International University Professor Stanley Fish.

Please allow me to express our sincere apology for not properly sourcing the material we used in the press release announcing his hiring. We will fix the problem immediately by amending the press release in our archive database.

--Flex 12:38, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

Fish and Legal Theory

I think something should be put in about Fish's writings on jurisprudence. It can't be said that he has a particularly strong reputation in the field, but he has been published on legal theory and, if only because of his reputation as an English scholar, his efforts produced a number of responses from such distinguished jurists as Ronald Dworkin and Richard Posner User: JRJW 19 December 2005

David Lodge and Fish

If we are going to allow a connection here -- which I personally am leaning against doing -- then we need to have a citation to the article and change the wording. Fish as an inspiration for Morris Zapp, while interesting I suppose, is a rumor. To say "Fish is probably the inspiration...", appears random and does not serve any purpose so far as the rest of the article is concerned. If we are to allow it to stay, it needs to be expanded and even then it needs to be cited and proven relevant to the rest of the article. Perhaps it should be moved to a 'trivia' subheading. Or it could be in a subheading that relates Fish to contemporaries and/or critics -- although I don't really think this is necessarily a great idea either. For the moment, I am removing it under the premise of WP:NOT, subheading 1.8.

Ryecatcher773 18:43, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Fish and Law

How did this dude get to be a law professor? Unless I'm missing something, it isn't covered in the article. Lou Sander 23:39, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• Professor Fish's academic resume is listed in it's abridged entirety (which is to say all the major things are covered). What you are looking for is there, it is mentioned under the heading of Academic Career. If you are looking for something more comprehensive, such as the road map from high school to Professor of Law at Duke, well, it isn't written down anywhere that I've seen. I never bothered asking him about it, but so far as I am aware, one doesn't need have to have a degree in Law in order to teach it -- if that is what you are asking. Professor Fish's main areas of focus are Milton, First Amendment Law, and Deconstruction Theory (see Jacques Derrida). Qualifications for teaching at the university level typically have more to do with an area of expertise as it has been demonstrated in practice (publications, awards, etc) than it does with what ones diploma says. Ryecatcher773 00:51, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I can see that he was a law professor at Duke. But I can't see anything at all that would explain how and why an English teacher would become a law professor, or someone whose "main area of interest" is First Amendment Law. Why not a surgeon? Or a volleyball theorist? Did he get a traffic ticket, go to court, and decided he loved the law? Surely it wasn't just an opening he applied for, was it? One would hope that an encyclopedia might shine a little light on unusual aspects of its subjects' careers. Lou Sander 02:27, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, as I stated, there is nothing in print to substantiate anything theories or speculations on his move. However, it is hardly a big jump from English to Law. English curricula, at the university level anyway, is not about writing book reports, it's about critical analysis. Studying law is, in effect, not much different in theory. Part of the reason English is one of the majors considered ideal for pre-Law is this critically analytical approach. English is also a name applied to a major that could also be called 'Rhetoric', which is what lawyers (or Rhetoricians as they were called) engaged in during the classical Greek period -- read your Aristotle and Plato, or just ask an English professor. He or she will back my claim on this (incidentally, it isn't just my claim... I'm taking it from the overview section on English as a Major in the UIC catalog... and I'm sure they weren't the first to come up with it either) Cheers! Ryecatcher773 03:28, 1 December 2006 (UTC)